Sega Superstars Tennis User Reviews (Wii)

Kid_Krillin_And_Goku_Fan
from Coast-Line, Lincolnshire, UK

May 22, 2008

Sega Superstars Tennis is the latest game from developers Sumo Digital, a company which also worked on another sports game, Virtua Tennis 3. Featuring some of Sega's most popular...and not so popular characters, is this tennis game good enough to rival the simplistic Wii Sports Tennis?

We'll start with graphics. The characters are quite accurate to their appearances in previous games, and even some people might be able to recognise 'Gilius Thunderhead' and 'Alex Kidd' from the early 1990's. The tennis courts are fairly well designed, and all look colourful and clean - stages like Jet Set Radio and the underwater NiGHTS come to mind. However, although the designs are all fair and well, the graphics aren't much better than what you'd expect from the Nintendo GameCube. The graphics haven't been pushed to their limits, and this is where the game fails visually.

The Wii version of this game boasts three control types. The one I am most familiar is traditional, where you hold the wii remote on its side, using the 1 and 2 buttons to hit the ball with, and the D-Pad to move your character. Holding in A and B will trigger your Superstar State (your character performs a special move involving lots of moving lines), which isn't that great, and a lot of time, leaves your opponent getting the points. I found that the D-Pad isn't always responsive, and sometimes you may find yourself pushing down the D-Pad further than it should be going...however, this control type still works better than the new control we first saw in Wii Sports. Swinging the wii-mote like an actual bat is very unresponsive, I found, and is really annoying to play with. The other control type, using the Nunchuk is okay to play with, but will take some getting used to.

The character selection is fairly average, something we should expect from a game like this. As you can tell, Sonic The Hedgehog is favoured in this game, with a whopping five out of sixteen available characters in the game dedicated to that series, whilst other series, such as the underdogs Samba De Amigo and Super Monkey Ball, are only represented by one or two characters. The roster could easily be lifted up to 24 characters at least, with characters such as Billy Hatcher and more of the monkeys from Super Monkey Ball that should have been added but were dismissed for the obvious Sonic overdose. The characters are split up into classes: these are Speed, Control, Power, Spin and All-Around. I find that the Control characters (Ulala and Pudding from Space Channel 5) are the best type to master, whereas others like Spin characters (Tails, AiAi), can be quite annoying to play as.

The courts are lacking in numbers, that's for sure, although what there is, is good. Of course, there's the plain old tennis-court for fans of 'proper tennis', under the category of Sonic The Hedgehog, alongside a factory-like zone which is bland and dull. However, the music for these courts is astonishing, with key Sonic songs from Emerald Hill Zone and Sonic Heroes making it into the game. Samba De Amigo has one of the best courts, set in a place that reminds me of Brazil, with its various shades of orange and fun music to hum along to as you play. Jet Set Radio and Space Channel 5 both have interesting stages, but the music is a bit boring and very forgettable. The NiGHTS underwater stage is my favourite stage so far, and the Super Monkey Ball stage is not far off.

Also included in this game is Mini-Games, and a game mode called Superstars Mode, which fit next to the obvious Singles, Doubles and Tournament battles, which explain themselves really. Superstars Mode is divided into categories based on the series of games - most, if not all characters can be unlocked here and their respective series' set of mini-games. In each set, the games are generally repetitive, although the Puyo Puyo games were exciting and fun to play in. The Mini-Game mode is generally the same as Superstars Mode, except without the prizes and less fun because we've already seen it from Superstars Mode, which you'll most likely find yourself playing from time to time to get those wanted characters.

To summarise, Sega Superstars Tennis is a mixed game with no real amazingly-good points, but no amazingly-bad ones either. This is your mediocre, supposed to be more fun version of tennis, that isn't really going to keep you enticed for more than two hours at a time, and only when you're bored will you find yourself playing it. For diehard Sega fans, this is a must-have of course, but if you've got the choice, 'Mario Power Tennis' for the Nintendo GameCube is a better choice of tennis game, and even the simple 'Wii Sports Tennis' is better than this game. I wouldn't rush out to buy this game, but I wouldn't avoid it completely either.